The Puritans can get stick for being legalistic and judgemental killjoys. But they were deeply reverent, sincere in their spiritual piety and committed to biblical doctrine. They sound pretty intense and probably didn’t play quite enough football, but i’ve much respect for their commitment toward God.

Here’s a prayer from back in the day. More intense than we’re used to yes, but I love the sentiment behind it.

Almighty God,

As I cross the threshold of this day
I commit myself, soul, body, affairs, friends to thy care;
Watch over, keep, guide, direct, sanctify, bless me.
Incline my heart to thy ways;
Mould me wholly into the image of Jesus, as a potter forms clay;
May my lips be a well-tuned harp to sound thy praise;
Let those around me see me living by thy Spirit,
trampling the world underfoot,
unconformed to lying vanities,
transformed by a renewed mind,
clad in the entire armour of God,
shining as a never-dimmed light,
showing holiness in all my doings.

Let no evil this day soil my thoughts, words, hands.
May I travel miry paths with a life pure from spot or stain.
In needful transactions let my affection be in heaven,
and my love soar upwards in flames of fire,
my gaze fixed on unseen things,
my eyes open to the emptiness, fragility,
mockery of earth and its vanities.

May I view all things through the mirror of eternity,
waiting for the coming of my Lord,
listening for the last trumpet call,
hastening unto the new heaven and earth.

Order this day all my communications according to thy wisdom, and to the gain of mutual good.
Forbid that I should not be profited or made profitable.
May I speak each word as if my last word, and walk each step as my final one.

Been reading this book recently. Read this bit last week. Thought it was cool, its pretty self-explanatory.

Despite the honour accorded him as the father of this new race, however, Abraham emerges as as the Bible’s first example of a person severely disappointed with God. Miracles, he had. Abraham entertained angels in his home and dreamed mystical visions of smoking pot fires. But there was one nagging problem: after the promise, after a blaze of revelation, came silence – long years of bewildering silence.

“Go, claim the land I have for you,” God said. But Abraham found Canaan dry as a bone, its inhabitants dying of famine. To stay alive he fled to Egypt.

“You’ll have descendants as countless as the stars in the sky,” God said. No promise could have made Abraham happier. At age seventy-five he still anticipated a tent filled with the sounds of children at play. At eighty-five he worked out a backup plan with a female servant. At ninety-nine the promise seemed downright ludicrous, and when God showed up to confirm it, Abraham laughed in his face. A father at ninety-nine? Sarah in maternity clothes at ninety? They both cackled at the thought.

A laugh of ridicule but also of pain. God had dangled a bright dream of fertility before a barren couple and then sat on his hands and watched as they advanced towards tottery old age. What kind of game was he playing? Whatever did he want?

God wanted faith, the bible says, and that is the lesson Abraham finally learned. He learned to believe when there was no reason left to believe. And although he did not live to see the Hebrews fill the land as stars fill the sky, Abraham did live to see Sarah bear one child – just one – a boy, who forever preserved the memory of absurd faith, for his name Issac meant “laughter

And the pattern continued: Issac married a barren woman, as did his son Jacob. The esteemed matriarchs of the convenant – Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel – all spent their best child-bearing years slender and in despair. They too experienced the the blaze of revelation, followed by dark and lonely of waiting that nothing but faith would fill.

A gambler would say God stacked the odds against himself. A cynic would say God taunted the creatures he was supposed to love. The bible simply uses the cryptic phrase “by faith” was what God valued, and it soon became clear that faith was the best way for humans to express a love for God.

I love the notion of sacrifice in theory, but in practice I instinctively opt for side-stepping it at virtually every opportunity. I respect it so much when I see it in others, and deep down dream of being a man of sacrifice big time… but when the moment arrives to follow through, I almost always bail out, put off by the cost and inconvenience.

Sacrifice is exactly what the Christian life calls us to though. If we’re serious about following Jesus, we’re required (demanded?) to make our peace with it. Biblically there’s no getting around it. Following Gods every instruction will cost us. Sacrifice by definition requires there be a cost, if there wasn’t one, it would cease to be a sacrifice. I’m stupid to think otherwise.

A few paragraphs of a book I read a few weeks ago left me feeling pretty challenged…

“We are groomed to become someone, not to empty ourselves for others. But in order to follow Jesus Christ with any degree of tenacity, we inevitably will be prompted to take demonstrations. We will be asked to relinquish what is “rightfully” ours. We will inconvenience ourselves to the point of sacrifice, even when others call us fools. And we will do it for two simple reasons: first, we understand that the kingdom of God never advances without sacrifice; and second, because every serious-minded Christian I know wants to receive a heartfelt “well done!” in heaven someday.

…

In fact, almost every time you hear a prompting from God, something safe or predictable most likely has to go but you persevere knowing that when you take the risks he as asking you to take – as you conform to his mission in yet one more way – the kingdom moves forward.

This is what it looks like to live a life fully surrendered to God. Its rarely a walk in the park. Obeying the Spirit instead of your own self-centered whims will lead you to places you’ve never been, challenge you in ways you have never been challenged and invite levels of sacrifice you never dreamed you could make. This is the power and the promise of full-throttle faith, of living a life fuelled solely by God.”

Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God”?

Do you not know? Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

At that moment in the film I wonder if Frodo would have described himself as soaring…? I doubt it. Battered and bruised, I reckon he’d have been too exhausted to care.

I guess i’ve always thought of soaring as some sort of pain-free escape route from anything and everything nasty that life might throw up… but maybe its not quite like that. Maybe its a little more like the image above, namely Gods promise of salvation and rescue to those who are hurting, who have nothing more to give, who are weary and beat up, who have stumbled and fallen, who lie face down in the dust and are too exhausted to get up.

The truth is, Gods promises hold. Whatever’s going on, God loves and knows. He knows our every weaknesses and need, and provides for us always. In Him we lack nothing.

So could it be that we’re always soaring… regardless of whether or not we’re aware of it? I’m inclined to think we might be.

Back in September I moved flats for the first time in 5 years. The flats a dive but the flatmates are epic. Here’s a photo from my bedroom. South-facing = a lot of sunshine. Winner. John Denver sang, sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy. So true.

It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

In scripture God consistently blesses us with the reminder of our finite nature . We’re likened to dust, like grass that withers, like flowers of the field that spring up, beautifully, but briefly… and quickly gone and forgotten. Psalm 103:14-16 says:

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

I love the perspective on offer. We are fragile and our lives are short-lived. It puts us in our place and makes God look rightly massive. Personally, it serves to take the pressure off and reminds me not to take myself too seriously. Being “dust” makes us anything but useless though. Applying a bit of divine creativity God formed Adam from the stuff! Similarly, in His hands, our potential is limitless! Amen.